Silhouette Project

What is a Silhouette?

Making your subject featureless apart from their outline against a bright background.
Silhouettes are a great way to convey drama, mystery, emotion and mood to a photo.

They don’t give the viewer of a clear picture of everything….they leave part of the image up to their imagination.

Article on Backlight and Shooting Silhouettes

Before you begin the photo assignment listed below, CLICK HERE to read the article and answer the provided questions. After you finish, read the instructions below and begin the photo assignment.
Photo Assignment:

How to Shoot a Silhouette:

• Place your subject (the shape you want to be blacked out) in front of some source of light.
• Force your camera to set its exposure based upon the brightest part of your picture (the background) and not the subject of your image.
• Make your camera think that it’s the bright parts of the picture you are most interested in.

Tips

• Almost any object can be made into a silhouette.
• Choose something with a strong and recognizable shape that will be interesting enough in its two dimensional.
• Silhouettes can’t draw on the colors, textures and tones of subjects to make them appealing – so the shape needs to be distinct.
• If your camera has an automatic mode, turn it off.
• You want as little light on the front of your subject as possible.
• Instead of lighting the front of your subject, you need more light shining from the background than the foreground.
• You want to light the back of your subject rather than the front.
• The perfect light for this is placing your subject in front of a sunset or sunrise – but really any bright light will be able to do the trick.
• Instead of lighting the front of your subject, you need more light shining from the background than the foreground.
• You want to light the back of your subject rather than the front.
• The perfect light for this is placing your subject in front of a sunset or sunrise – but really any bright light will be able to do the trick.
• Instead of lighting the front of your subject, you need more light shining from the background than the foreground.
• You want to light the back of your subject rather than the front.
• The perfect light for this is placing your subject in front of a sunset or sunrise – but really any bright light will be able to do the trick.

Examples of Silhouettes:

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PANORAMA PROJECT

A Panorama is a photo that show a wide angle of view.

For your Panorama I would like to shoot photos and put them together to create the Panoramic view.

Assignment:

You will shoot 5 different panoramic scenes.

For each panorama, you will shoot 5 or more photos. The photos must be shot in order.

Try and leave a 30% overlap in the photos when you shoot them.

You can use the layers technique you’ve learned to put the photos together.
Or…have Photoshop do some of the work by use the “Photomerge” function.
Here are the instruction to use Photomerge.

Launch Photoshop…Select File….put you courser on Automate and select Photomerge.

Click the Browse button and select your photos.

Click OK. Crop as needed and save your file.

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Composition review

To review your understanding of composition as it relates to making a photograph, read the article: 10 Top Composition Rules and answer the questions below.
CLICK HERE for the article

1. Why do photographers use composition guidelines when taking photos?
2. Explain the composition principal called: Rule of Thirds and how it benefits a photo.

3. Explain how the composition principal Balancing Elements relates to Rule of Thirds.
4. How does having leading lines in your photo help the viewer enjoy the image?

5. How does breaking the symmetry and pattern in a photo help its composition?

6. Explain Viewpoint as it relates to composition of a photo.
7. How does the way our eye’s see and the camera sees as it relates to the background of a photo?
8. How can you create the sense of “Depth” in a photograph?
9. Explain how using the composition principle “Framing” will affect the main subject of your photo.
10. List one way a photo can lack impact and one technique you can use to fix it.